Seto Kaiba Gets Isekai'd
by DarkPaladin000
Summary: Seto Kaiba never considered himself a hero- but when he's transported to a strange world where dueling is the difference between life and death, and humanity stands on the verge of extinction he founds himself unwittingly becoming their savior. How will Seto Kaiba deal with this new world and the responsibilities thrust upon him?
1. The Beastmen King I

**A/N: I don't own the rights to Yu-Gi-Oh! Also, this fanfic does take some inspiration from the anime Overlord. Also, I'm keeping the part where Kaiba doesn't believe in magic and all from the 4Kids version, at least initially.**

King Merobos III licked his lips as he expectantly waited for the main course to arrive. He sipped a little bit of wine out of the human skull he had made into a drinking cup.

Many races, particularly beastmen had a habit of collecting their victim's bones, skulls in particular, as ornaments. The tribe that King Merobos III belonged to, the Merobonians had no such practices in their traditions, but the fact remained that the skull of this particular human in question was a rather special one. A trophy, as one might call it.

"Hail King Merobos III!" these cries came from the rest of his tribesmen. The Merobonians were a race of beastmen which resembled centaurs in that their lower bodies, rather than being those of a horse, were those of a tiger, and their upper bodies resembled those of humans, however they had the heads of lions and thick fur covered their chests.

"Thank you, my tribesmen," Kinge Merobos III declared. 'Today is a special day, as it marks two weeks since our victory over this human city! My heart swells as I think of your valor! And, to add to my happiness, my queen has finally given birth to a cub- a suitable heir. for our tribe!"

The gathered Merobonians all cheered. Since they had taken the city, eighty percent of its human population had been killed. The rest of the twenty percent were not alive out of any form of kindness on part of the Merobonians, no, they were kept alive because their stomachs had been filled for the time being.

King Merobos III's mouth began to water as the main course arrived. While there was more than enough food for all the tribesmen, this particular delicacy was something reserved for members of the royal family, and that too on special days.

A strange scent met his nostrils- ah, the human female presented to him had soiled herself much as a pig before slaughter would have. That was only to be expected, of course. The woman in question was painfully thin but had a protruding stomach.

King Merobos III smiled to himself once more.

Ah yes, a six-months-old human foetus served within its mother's womb- clearly a delicacy worthy of such royalty as himself!

Of course, the Merobonians, like all beastmen and demihumans, preferred their meat served live and fresh on the table itself.

* * *

"Hey bro, I think I found something," Mokuba said.

Seto Kaiba looked up from his laptop.

Two months had passed since the duel in the desert, where apparently Yugi Muto had dueled with an ancient Egyptian pharaoh and sent him back to the afterlife.

Kaiba growled. He didn't believe in such things- or at least he told himself that, but given what all had happened since then, he couldn't but help realize there had always been truth to what Ishizu and the others had told him.

As such, this meant that the spirit of the pharaoh was his real opponent and Seto Kaiba was looking for a way to get a rematch.

Asking Yugi was out of the question, as he was just told that Atem, which was apparently the pharaoh's real name, was not coming back.

Kaiba had a few ideas on how he could still challenge the man, and one of them involved a space elevator, but he kept _that_ idea in the back of his head for now.

Instead, Plan A was to now wait and see if there was anything that KaibaCorp could find regarding this ancient Egyptian lore. Till now, they had been unsuccessful, but Mokuba had found something interesting in the records department.

"We don't know how this book got there bro, it wasn't in the archives list." Mokuba said.

Kaiba took the book. It looked fairly old and had a black cover on it which had no title on it. There was description on the back however, in English no less.

_Behold, the book commonly referred to as the 'Dark Souls' of the isekai genre of novels, which has gotten wide acclaim from readers and reviewers worldwide._

There was nothing more. The rest of the text looked like it had been worn out.

"And?" Kaiba asked questioningly. "What exactly is an 'isekai' huh? And what is this 'Dark Souls' thing?"

"Uh, I Googled it and it said that 'isekai' is a genre of Japanese novels where the protagonist finds themselves in a new world," Mokuba said. "And Dark Souls is a video game series, but I don't know how that works out."

Kaiba opened the book and flipped through the pages. They were all blank.

"Huh?" he wondered. There weren't even faded marks suggesting that there had been text there, it was as if the book had been printed all blank from the get-go.

Suddenly, a blinding light came from the pages of the book.

"It never did that before!" Mokuba explained.

And before he knew it, Seto Kaiba found himself sucked into it.

* * *

For someone who had suddenly found himself lost in a strange forest, Seto Kaiba was surprisingly calm.

The first thing he had to figure out was whether he was in an actual forest, in that he had been teleported somewhere, or if this was a virtual reality simulation.

He closed his eyes for a minute to try and concentrate, and as he did, he was able to see how many life points he had and the cards he had in his deck.

Well he couldn't actually 'see' them per se, rather, he somehow knew what they were the moment he closed his eyes, as if the information was being directly processed into his brain.

He looked at his wrist. He didn't have his duel disk, and neither did he have his cards, but the cards in his deck were identical to the ones he had been using up till now.

He sighed.

So this _was _some sort of video game.

Of course, something like this had happened twice before. Once, the Big Five had tricked him. The other time, his evil stepbrother (man did that feel weird to think about) had kidnapped him without his knowledge.

This seemed to be like the second time in that he didn't remember how he had gotten here- he had not gotten into a pod or hooked himself up to a virtual console or anything like that. So that meant that probably someone had kidnapped him and hooked him to one.

He was mostly calm- but there was something that propelled him to go further and further into the forest.

It was the fact that if someone had kidnapped him, they had probably kidnapped his brother as well.

As such, he had to find his brother as quickly as possible.

As he walked through the forest, he suddenly crested a hill, and a long path to a what appeared to be a city appeared before him. The sun was high overhead, which meant most likely it was near noon.

Well, there was no where else to go but towards the city, so he might as well head there.

* * *

The two guards squinted their eyes.

Of course, the eyes of the Merobonians were very sharp, but that wasn't why they were squinting.

They were squinting because they couldn't comprehend the sight which was unfolding before them.

Behind them was the gate to the human city which they had taken together along with the rest of their tribe.

In front of them was a long path on which there was a solitary traveler- human in shape, and as it came closer, it was obvious it was a human.

But there was just one.

The two of them glanced at each other.

This thing made no sense at all.

Had this human come to rescue the others within this city? If so, why was it alone?

In that case, was this a trap?

Or did a human just wander by chance towards the city- no that was impossible. They had shepherded all of the humans in the surrounding settlements back into the city, and hunted those hiding in the forest.

Oh well, there was nothing to do but to go ahead and 'greet' the human before them.

As it was, these two were in a rather bad mood. Here they were guarding the gate, and behind them, in the city the rest of their tribesmen were enjoying themselves and gorging their bellies on fresh human meat.

Maybe hearing this human scream would bring some sort of relief to them.

The human was dressed funnily, in a strange spotless white cloak which hung above the earth as if it defied gravity itself. It was probably magical in nature. He had dark brown fur on top of his head like most humans did.

Strangely enough, the human did not run away from them when it saw them. It did not seem fazed, on the contrary, it sped up towards them.

"Huh, so is this the tutorial?" the man asked. At least, the guards thought it was a man. They weren't that good at differentiating human genders unless the humans in question were naked.

"What is your name human?" one of them asked, at a loss for words. "What is your business here?"

"And what the hell is a tutorial?" the other one said.

"Oh great," the man said. "Is everyone in this city a talking animal? Was this game designed by a furry? I bet Wheeler would have a blast here."

The guards thought the man's voice was condescending- human voices were a bit hard for them to comprehend, but it appeared that way. One of them had had enough and drew his sword and swung it at the strange man.

The man seemed surprised by this, but the blade's speed left no room for him to try and avoid it, especially given the Beastmen's natural superiority to humans in both speed and strength.

But for some reason, the blade connected with the man's face and with a loud _clank! _it bounced off, having done nothing at all to him.

The other guard drew his battle-ax, but this was also deflected.

As the two guards stared at this man, stupefied, the man made his move.

He grabbed one of the guards' daggers out of its sheath and then lunged for the guard's neck.

However, the dagger was only a dagger for the Merobonians, for a human it was as large as a sword and far too heavy for the human to swing with any force. The guard sidestepped it easily.

The human dropped the dagger and clutched his hand- it was far too big for him and he had what the guards guessed was a sour expression on his face.

"What is this? What the hell is this!?"

The tone with which this human spoke was authoritative and demanding, as if he expected the two Merobonians to bow before him.

The guards couldn't understand- the only thing they had ever heard from humans were shrieks and whimpers, or else silent sobs.

What was this human?

However, the two of them realized why their weapons had no effect on this human.

"You're a duelist, aren't you?"

The man answered, 'Oh you bet I am."

"We need to get the captain then."

Wordlessly, the two guards retreated towards the city.

* * *

Captain Barbaros was not exactly a very astonishing specimen among the Merobonians. As a matter of fact, he was smaller than most of the other males, almost small enough to pass for a female. No one within the tribe would challenge him however.

That was because Captain Barbaros was a duelist- one of the three duelists within the entire tribe of the Merobonians. This human city had had more than three duelists, but most of the human duelists had been weak and fallen easily to him and King Merobos III.

He had been sleeping just a few minutes ago, but now he found himself roused as the alarm had been sounded. After he had finished smacking the two guards responsible for delivering the news to him for waking him up he tread towards the gate.

The two guards mumbled to each other, but they would not dare complain about Captain Barbaros's conduct towards them. After all, Barbaros was a duelist, and that meant that even though these two were far bigger than him and could easily overcome him in any physical fight he far outranked them.

That was because a duelist was immune to all attacks both physical and magical- and could only be harmed within a duel. As such, Barbaros knew these two had no way to harm him in return.

Of course, this fact which let him rule over so many of his tribesmen without any regard for consequences was also why this human the two had reported could not be handled by them. Only another duelist could kill a duelist. He ordered the gate be opened.

At first, he had not believed their report in that single human had appeared to attack the city.

Surely the humans had no recourse against the Merobonians. They knew for a fact that demihuman tribes were raiding the humans' territory towards the north, and therefore, they, who had attacked the south, should have had no opposition.

But, if they had decided to mount a force to repel the invading Merobonians, they would have sent an army, not a single man!

But, no matter how he thought about it, Barbaros had to note that the human before him was truly alone. The only other option was that this was some sort of trap, but even if his eyes had been deceived his nose could not possibly mistake the fact that there were no other humans.

As it stood, this human piqued his curiosity to some extent. It was dressed funnily, and its clothes did not carry the usual scent of wool, silk, or animal hide. Its cape floated above the ground- clearly it was enchanted. Not to mention it had a scent slightly different from other humans- devoid of dirt and grime.

That was not all. Barbaros could feel the aura around this man. Without a doubt, he was a duelist.

So, the two guards had not been wrong in informing him about this man. But Barbaros still felt no guilt for how he had treated them. The strong ruled over the weak, and that was how the world worked. His subordinates had long since grown used to being the outlet for his rages.

And now, he would take out his frustration at having been woken up on this human.

"You there human!" Barbaros roared. "Prepare to duel!"

The human did not whimper, run away scared, or soil itself. It simply cocked its head and said, "I don't have a duel disk, and neither do you."

Barbaros frowned. "I do not know what a duel disk is, but I do not care to hear your words. Duel!"

And with that, the duel was initiated. Though the others could not see anything, Barbaros could see his hand with his mind's eye. He could even see his opponent's life points, the number of cards in his opponent's hand and deck. He could not of course see what his opponent's hand was of course.

And then he gulped in confusion.

Why was this human starting out with 8,000 life points? He himself had only 1,500 life points- and wait! Barbaros had only fifteen cards in his deck in total, but this human had a total exceeding forty! Even King Merobos III only had 3,000 life points.

"Oh, so there's a forbidden list here too?" the human mused. "Funny, why is Exodia banned in this game and not just limited like in the real world?"

Barbaros was not listening. This series of events sent a chill down his spine.

Barbaros however, knew he could not show any weakness, especially before his guards. But a cold sweat began to roll over him.

Could it be possible- the humans had sent only one person because one person was enough?

No way

A single soldier capable of conquering a city all by himself- such things only happened in the legends of old! And this was real life!

Barbaros set a monster card face down and ended his turn.

The card in question had 1050 defense, which was quite formidable. He had no doubt that it would take time for this human to find a card that could tear through such a defense, if he even had one at all in the first place. Of course, King Merobos III had a card which could do so, but a lowly human could not rival the king of their tribe.

"All right then, I summon Vorse Raider in attack mode," the man said.

Barbaros's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "1900 attack! Impossible!" Even the human king of this city did not have a card with that much firepower!

"Attack!" the man said. "Wait- was that card really that weak? Did you have only that card in your hand? Huh, guess this was a tutorial mission after all."

Barbaros knew in that moment he was finished. The highest powered monster in his deck had 1150 attack. He had no noteworthy spells or traps to speak of.

In other words, he was finished.

Barbaros set a card face down before a ray of hope struck him.

True, he could not win- but he knew for a fact that King Merobos III had a card that could beat this monster. He barked to the two guards. "Both of you! Inform the king that a powerful duelist has arrived at this city!"

Both of the guards knew why he was so agitated. Though they could not see the hands that the two of them had nor their life points, they could see the monsters and other cards on the field.

It would appear that his king would have to avenge him.

"I summon Kaiser Seahorse in attack mode!" the human said and summoned a monster with 1800 attack. With that, the man swept aside his face down which had been a monster with only 550 defense and then attacked him directly with Vorse Raider, bringing Barbaros's life points to zero.

The strike caused pain to course through his body, but it was nothing compared to the shock of losing.

"Well that's that then," Barbaros said and sank to the ground.

However, as he awaited death, he noticed that none came.

The winner of the duel held the loser's life in his hands, but this human had not killed Barbaros yet.

Clearly, he wanted to inflict a severe and humiliating death upon Barbaros.

Barbaros had taken countless lives in the past, but now that his own death was upon him, he found that he could not face it and tears began to track down his eyes.

"Well, what's next then?" the human spat.

Barbaros growled. "You may have bested me human- but you will not last against our king."

"Really? Why don't you call him down here then?"

Barbaros couldn't believe his ears. Was this human letting Barbaros go? And that too just so Barbaros could act as a messenger?

Even after what Barbaros had done to the humans here?

The human's expression hadn't changed- and it was then that it hit Barbaros.

Arrogance.

This was the arrogance of the strong. This human was strong, no doubt about it. Given that he had defeated Barbaros so cleanly, it was doubtful that there were more than a handful of other humans that could rival him.

Come to think of it, he was definitely stronger than the king of this city.

In other words, this human did not consider Barbaros as an opponent worth killing.

"All right. I will fetch him myself," Barbaros said with a smirk. He would enjoy watching this human wail for his life as he was defeated by their great king.

Barbaros turned around, and began marching towards the castle in the center of the city.

Or at least, he tried to tell himself he was marching, but anyone else watching him would've immediately said that he was running much like how a deer would flee from a lion.

* * *

Seto Kaiba prided himself in keeping a cool demeanor at all times. Even when it seemed the world was ending and he was dealing with forces beyond any normal person's comprehension, he was able to keep himself calm.

As such, he would be deeply embarrassed if anyone saw him as he was now.

The strange beast-centaur like creatures had left the gates to the city open, and so Seto Kaiba had strolled right in. They said they were going to get their king- which Kaiba assumed was the boss of this area or something.

But, the moment he had wandered into the city, the smell hit him like a brick wall.

And oh did it smell bad.

He had vomited out his lunch. And breakfast. And last night's dinner too. And finally, when nothing was left, just his stomach contents.

He had never smelt something like this before in his life.

As a matter of fact, now that he thought about it, it was weird that he could smell things.

Smell was different from vision and hearing- it was very hard to go ahead and simulate it. In order to simulate smell, you would have to directly and very finely stimulate particular nerve endings. And do that first, you needed to correlate different smells together- for that you would need to monitor a large group of volunteers as they sampled thousands if not millions of different smells and mapped out which areas of the brain each scent lit up.

KaibaCorp, even with its best current technology, could not replicate smell on this level.

Kaiba began to have doubts about his prior iron-clad belief that this was a simulation.

But if it wasn't a simulation, why did the world work like this? Why was it that these weird creatures couldn't hurt him but could duel him? And why could he 'see' his life points and cards somehow?

Come to think of it, if he had been kidnapped like previously with Noah, who had done so this time? Noah was dead.

The only enemies that Kaiba had currently were Pegasus- who was a 'good guy' now and Marik Ishtar. Of course, he had many more enemies, but they were the only ones that came to mind when he thought of powerful people. Industrial Illusions might have been working on virtual technology, but it was doubtful they could make something like this. As for the Ishtars, Ishizu was probably keeping her brother in check even if he went off the deep end again and they didn't have anything that could do this.

As such, he didn't know anyone else capable of doing this.

And that wasn't the only question he had. He had fought that strange beast in a duel, but it had only had 1500 life points and only 15 cards in its deck. The Duel Monsters rules dictated that decks had to have a minimum of 40 cards in them.

This meant that this game operated on different rules than the ones back home- and that disturbed him. He had not found a rulebook anywhere, and he needed to know the rules else he might leave himself open in some way later on in the future.

As it was, there was a forbidden/limited/semi-limited list. He had somehow known about the moment that duel started. A few cards of him violated the list, and he had taken Pot of Greed and Monster Reborn out of his deck.

Once he was done retching, he glanced around the city.

The people of this city seemed to have no sanitation readily available given how many piles of dung there were everywhere. Granted, that was realistic given the setting, but if this was a game Kaiba had designed, he would have definitely thought that there was line to be drawn when realism extended to the bowels of the denizens of a city.

In the center, the castle was clearly visible. Anyone who had played video games for half as long as Kaiba had would've immediately guessed that this was the place where the boss was.

That beast-centaur Seto had fought had said that he would bring the king to Seto, but he figured he might as well go towards him. After all, time was of the essence to him. He wanted to break out of this virtual world as soon as possible.

As he walked though, he saw a human skeleton which had been torn in off.

He frowned. It kind of broke the sense of immersion of a game like this to have beast-centaur things and humans together, but oh well, maybe this skeleton had just been put there for aesthetic appeal.

**A/N: Thank you for reading. Just want to clarify, although that beastman was named Barbaros, he isn't the card 'Barbaros: The King of All Beasts' and his name is a coincidence.**

**And do leave a review if you have any questions/comments.**


	2. The Beastmen King II

**A/N: As always, I don't own the rights to Yu-Gi-Oh! Thank you lalalei and kazikamikaze24 for your reviews! It means a lot!**

King Merobos III was interrupted from taking a bite out of the screaming woman placed before him as the doors to the throne room flung open.

Annoyed, he turned his gaze to the beastman who had dared to interrupt a feast like this- it was Captain Barbaros.

He calmed himself down. Although Barbaros was the weakest of the three duelists within the tribe of the Merobonians, he was still an extremely valuable asset and King Merobos III could not dispose of him. Also, if he was interrupting the king, the captain must've had a good reason to do so.

"What is the meaning of this interruption?" King Merobos III asked.

"My liege," Barbaros replied. "The humans have sent a duelist. I was defeated in a duel against him."

Kinge Merobos III immediately forgot about his meal. "What?! Impossible!"

The whole reason the Merobonians had chosen this specific city to attack was because they were sure that their victory would be unopposed. The humans had been weak, but they had still outnumbered the beastmen twenty to one during the initial assault. However, no other human city could come to the humans' aid, as the other cities would be bogged down by assaults from other races.

"How many soldiers?" the king demanded to know. Whispers were being muttered across the room from his other tribesmen. He had stationed guards- it should've been impossible for the humans to have brought a large force before the city without them knowing about it sooner. He motioned for the woman to be gagged as her screams were getting annoying.

"Just one," Barbaros replied. "A single duelist."

King Merobos III couldn't understand what had just been said. His mind couldn't comprehend it. The other tribesmen had started laughing at Barbaros's ridiculous answer, but he silenced the room with a wave of his hand.

"A single duelist?" King Merobos III asked.

"Yes," Barbaros replied.

"And, if you were defeated, how are you still here then?" King Merobos III asked.

"The human let me live," Barbaros said bitterly. "He sent me as a messenger to fetch you to him."

The king couldn't process these events. From any angle that he approached them, the whole situation was downright bizarre.

Just then, one of the castle guards approached the room. "My liege! There is a human duelist approaching this castle!"

The king growled. There was nothing the guards could do against such a foe.

"Let him in then," the king said and stood proudly before his tribe. He had already proved his valor a hundred times over, and now, he would do it again.

* * *

Seto Kaiba was in a strange land, and he still didn't know where his brother was or where he himself was for that matter. It was possible his brother had been kidnapped by forces unknown.

But, still, he didn't feel like running, and so he decided to walk briskly towards the castle.

Come to think about it, Seto Kaiba was surprised by how easy it was to walk towards and into the castle.

Normally, he would've expected to be challenged by at least twelve chump duelists in a row before facing the main boss given that was how games worked, but whatever, he couldn't really complain about that.

What he could complain about though was the scenery.

Seto Kaiba didn't consider himself to be a squeamish person, but the moment he saw the humans in the places where he was walking he averted his eyes.

They had all been stripped naked and had been chained by these strange beast-centaur things with collars around their necks. The beast-centaurs didn't do anything to stop him and only glared at him as he made his way towards what he guessed was the boss room.

Anyway, he wasn't one to kink shame other people, but what kind of degenerates were the game developers of this game? They seemed to be into furry BDSM given the sights that Seto was seeing. It honestly did rattle him more than he'd have liked to admit.

Also, he was surprised that whoever had kidnapped him hadn't sent him a message yet. He had not received any threats, or statements from people saying that they had kidnapped Mokuba. [He wasn't sure that Mokuba had been kidnapped too, but as he thought about it, based on experience, it was probably likely.]

Inside the castle he saw similar sights with humans bound in various positions. He tired to put those things out of his head.

Finally, he reached what he guessed was the throne room. It was huge, and there were hundreds of beast-centaurs gathered in the room. It also had more humans than he had seen anywhere else, but these humans weren't just stripped naked and chained, they were also tied up.

Seto Kaiba tried to not look at them directly. He doubted even Joey Wheeler was this into things like this.

Again, he wasn't one to kink shame other people- he had seen some very odd fetishes while doing business, but this was something that went too far for him.

Standing near the throne was a beast-centaur that Seto guessed was the boss. The reason for this was the beast-centaur's clothes. Most of the beat-centaurs wore nothing or had just simple leather armor on, with a few of them having metal plate armor to cover parts of their bodies.

This one however was covered in a very ornate golden breastplate, and wore a flowing crimson cape which was the color of blood. He had a crown on his head- but it was far too small for him to wear and he had jammed it over his right ear. Come to think of it, it would've probably fit a human head rather than that of a beastman. He was holding a human skull in his hand out of which he drank. He wasn't the largest of all the beastmen, but Seto would've still bet a huge sum that this was the boss just based on his equipment.

All eyes turned to Seto, and Seto tried to concentrate on the boss. He did not want to focus on the humans.

"Ah yes, welcome, human," the boss spoke. "I am King Merobos III, and I am the ruler of the tribe known as the Merobonians. We Merobonians, we who are elites even amongst the other beastmen, who have conquered this city."

He looked at Seto and laughed. It was a rough _hee-haw _that grated on Seto's ears. "It looks like this human has some fat on him!"

"Hey, there's no need for body shaming," Seto blurted out defensively. He didn't think he was too fight- granted, he didn't have six pack abs or anything like that, and he _had_ put on a few pounds since Battle City had ended given how much time he spent in front of a computer rather than exercising, but by no one's standards could he be called 'fat.' At least, not yet.

"Ah," the boss said. "You see human, we Merobonians are a proud race of warriors who easily defeated the humans within this city despite being outnumbered twenty to one. The gods have blessed us with superior might as compared to humans! You will soon see the prowess of our tribe who-"

'Oh no,' Seto thought. 'He's monologuing!'

There was no 'skip cutscene' option, but Seto had zoned out as the boss kept on talking and that was, in a way, a sort of real life 'skip cutscene' button. He knew he probably should've paid attention in case something important was say, but with the way the boss kept droning on and on he really couldn't help but doze off.

He noticed that all of them were suddenly looking at him- and he realized that the boss must've asked him a question.

"Eh, could you repeat that? I wasn't paying attention." Seto said.

There were roars from all across the room.

"Such insolence!"

"Kill him!"

"You dare speak like that to our king, human?"

The boss just narrowed his eyes though. "I asked for your name human- and unless you wish to die an unnamed maggot you will tell me it."

"Seto Kaiba," Kaiba responded.

The boss scratched his chin. "I must say I have never heard of a duelist by that name- then again I am unfamiliar with the names of most human duelists. However, the humans of this city never said that you would be coming to save them, neither do you appear to have any vassals within this city."

Kaiba really didn't understand what he meant by that last sentence.

"Whatever. Are you ready to duel or not?"

The boss narrowed his eyes further and roared. "Very well human! I will crush you like the maggot you are! Humans are a weak species, and you should know to bend the knee to those stronger than you such as ourselves! The strong do what they will, and the weak suffer what they must! You will die in vain as I, King Merobos, third of my name, shall defeat you and inflict upon you a fate worse than-"

Kaiba rolled his eyes. This guy was monologuing. Again.

And Seto had had a lifetime's worth of villains monologuing uselessly.

The duel started, and as was true last time, Seto knew about his life points, the cards in his hands, the number of cards left in his deck, the graveyard, the number of cards in his opponent's hand, the number of cards in his opponent's deck, and his opponent's life points.

All of this info was fed directly to him via his brain and it didn't seem like it was visible to anyone else, but the monsters he summoned would appear in front of him and he guessed that other people could see them.

"I'll let you go first as a final act of mercy," King Merobos III said.

Kaiba glanced at his hand. He frowned.

He had 8,000 life points and his opponent had only 3,000. This was still a step up from that earlier duel where he fought someone who had 1,500 life points, but it bothered him that his opponents didn't start out with a full set of life points.

It was then that something occurred to him- what if it wasn't possible to gain back your life points in this world? Normally after finishing a duel one's life points would reset, but what if this world operated on different rules and one had to continue on with the remainder of the life points one had? The first time he had been locked up in a virtual world by the Big Five had been in a game like that.

He didn't have any cards that restored life points- which bothered him greatly. That would explain why he had such a high life point pool at the very beginning of the game. He would have to get cards that restored life points from somewhere if that were the case.

"What are you waiting for, human?" King Merobos III spat out. "I know that you must be trembling in your boots, but stall as much as you want, your death will still come!"

"I summon Kaiser Seahorse in attack mode!" Seto said and a monster with 1800 attack came to the field. "I then set a face-down and end my turn."

"I see," the boss said. "I can see how you managed to best my captain- with a card like that you're far more capable than the human king of this city and his Neo The Magic Sowrdsman. Granted, you're lucky you drew your ace on the first turn, but sadly for you, I too drew my most powerful card! Arise! Berserk Gorilla!"

"Oh no," Kaiba moaned and the boss jeered, assuming that Kaiba had lost all hope.

The other beastmen began hollering as well in excitement, but the truth was that Kaiba had thought that it would have been too corny to have a beastman use a Beast deck, but apparently the game designers had gone with it anyway.

There was one beastman who did not cheer though- it was Barbaros, but Seto was not paying attention to that of course.

"Ha!" the boss said. "Behold, the pride of the Merobonians! The card that helped us stave off the legions of the Troll Nation when they had attacked us! The card that shall be your doom!"

As Seto looked at the monster, he somehow instantly knew what its effect was just by looking at it, much like how he knew how many cards he had in his hand.

And thankfully, Berserk Gorilla had the same effect in this game as it had in the real world.

"I attack with Berserk Gorilla!" the boss said.

"I activate Enemy Controller," Seto said with a yawn. "With that, I change Berserk Gorilla to defense mode, and its effect means that it is destroyed."

Berserk Gorilla vanished from the field, and the hollering died down.

"W-what?" the boss exclaimed. "Grr... I have been done in by trickery! I end my turn!"

Seto frowned. Why hadn't he set a Trap or Spell given that his field was wide open? Did he have something in his hand? While the crowd looked tense, they didn't seem to be thinking that the boss would lose the very next turn.

Regardless though, Seto Kaiba's deck was one that powered through an opponent's defenses as quickly as possible and so the only real option he had was to go ahead and attack.

He could've summoned an Archfiend Soldier and finished him off with two hits, but he had a Blue Eyes in his hand, and Kaiser Seahorse had the same effect in this world as it did in the real world.

He smiled. Given a chance to win with his ace or with another monster, he would always choose showing off his ace.

"I tribute Kaiser Seahorse, and with its special ability I can count it as two tributes for a Light monster," Seto said. "And I summon! The Blue Eyes White Dragon!"

The glorious monster stood so tall it scraped the ceiling above.

All around him, there were gasps from the audience.

"Impossible!"

"Three thousand attack! No way!"

Huh, so they could see the monsters on the field and their attack points then.

But none of them shouted as loudly as the boss.

"No way!" he screamed in denial. His eyes had widened, and his body began shivering. "A Dragon of that power- no, it has never been seen before! Such a thing can exist only in legends!"

He stared at Kaiba. Kaiba couldn't read the expressions of beastmen as well as he could those of humans, but fear was a universal emotion. "Impossible! You are no human! You can't be! If the humans had a duelist this strong, we would have never made it this far into this country! You must be a god! That's right- you are a dragon god of old in human form!"

Seto Kaiba frowned. He enjoyed the praise his monster was getting, but did they really just call him a 'god?' I mean, sure the Blue Eyes was great, but he hadn't even used any of his other special cards though.

Judging from his opponent's reaction, he had nothing to stop Kaiba from wiping out his life points.

Of course, this could've just been a trap for Kaiba, but Kaiba knew of no traps that could be activated from one's hand.

"Blue Eyes! Finish him off!"

The Blue Eyes let out a torrent of white energy with dropped the boss's life points from 3,000 to 0 with a single blow.

And with that, Seto had won.

* * *

King Merobos III had no idea what had just happened.

"Barbaros!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, searching for an outlet to vent his frustration on. "You did not tell me this human had such a monster!"

How could anyone have a monster that powerful? The king had assumed that Kaiser Seahorse was Kaiba's ace monster, but that dragon...

He had never seen a monster like that. The very air trembled around the majestic sight of the dragon, and though it was a terrifying creature to see, he could not but help feel awed by it. And it was eight stars as well!

Impossible, he thought again. Even the ancient demon lord had been able to use a six star monster at most- meaning that this human's power surpassed that of even the demon lord of legend!

As far as his intelligence network had told him, the humans had only one duelist among them who could use a five star monster. He had been astonished at hearing this, but when he had learned it was a Curse of Dragon which equalled his Berserk Gorilla in attack power he was put at ease because he knew that as things were, that duelist would be too preoccupied up north to be able to face them.

Tears began to trickle down his face. How had it come to this?

Why? Why had fate done something like this to him? He had ruled as a king should have- but why had the gods abandoned him and cursed him with defeat?

Nowhere had it ever been told that the humans possessed such frightening power.

No, a person of this power should not have existed in this world.

All of his subjects had similar forlorn looks as he did on their faces. They knew death was coming to them.

After a duel, the winning duelist could not only kill his enemy, but any vassals that his enemy controlled. As it stood, nearly all of his countrymen were his vassals. Even those who would survive would no doubt be hunted by the monsters that this duelist would summon.

Given all this- there was only one option left for him.

"Ah, Master Seto Kaiba," he said and bowed his head. Now was not the time for humility- it was the time to beg for his life and those of his tribesmen.

He had no qualms with dying himself, but he could not as a leader let his whole tribe be wiped out with him.

"I beg for your forgiveness for opposing you. If you will please spare the lives of this foolish one and his minions, we shall be your loyal slaves until the very end of time. We shall grind our bodies into dust serving Your Majesty."

As long as they lived, he figured, there would be a chance they could grow in power, and perhaps, one day, defeat this human.

But now was the time to bend the knee.

"Where is Mokuba?" the man replied.

The king did not know what to respond with. Was Mokuba a magic item? A country? Or a person?

"Pardon me, lord, but this one does not know what a 'Mokuba' is, though if you would be kind enough to enlighten me, I and my tribe shall endeavor to locate it," the king answered hesitantly.

"Oh, he's my little brother," the man replied.

A chill ran down the king's spine. They had killed four out of five humans in this city. If this man's brother had been one of them- no! That made no sense at all. Surely if this man had a brother, a brother would have been made into a vassal of his and would've been protected by the ancient laws applying to duelist vassals!

And, come to think of it, as the king studied this human's face he realzied that this human had slightly different features that the humans of this city. He couldn't be 100% sure, but perhaps this human was of a different breed than those of this city. It was hard to tell given that he wasn't too confident with recognizing human features.

"Pardon me, but I do not believe your brother is within this city," the king answered.

"Then I have no use for you," Kaiba replied and another chill went down the king's spine. "Get out of my face right now!"

The king's ears perked up. What was this? Were they being allowed to run away?

It was something too good to be true, yet the king did not question it.

"Very well then, we shall get out of your way, Master Kaiba," the king said and motioned for his tribesmen to leave.

Unlike Barbaros before, the Merobonians made no attempt to seem as if they were marching away slowly on their business as usual.

They made no attempt to preserve their pride. As a matter of fact, they fled leaving the wounded of their tribe behind and forgotten, and the wounded were forced to limp after the main body of the fleeing beastmen.

* * *

Seto Kaiba had no idea why the beastmen had run away like that. And why was the boss begging for his life? Even if Seto used his full strength, there was no way he'd be able to kill someone like that.

And why had they all ran if all that had happened was that one of them had lost a children's card game against him? Oh well, this was a video game, so he guessed there wasn't that much logic too it in the first place. He guessed all things were solved with duels here.

Granted, the real world where he came from was a lot like that, but fistfights and battles with real weapons were also common back home and one couldn't rely on just his cards for protection. Cards could be stolen with force, after all.

But whatever- it didn't seem like Mokuba was here, and the boss hadn't recognized Seto. Meaning that those beastmen hadn't been working for whoever had brought him into this world.

He closed his eyes. He still had 8,000 life points. He felt like he should have taken some damage in that duel, he thought, so he could test if he could somehow get life points back once he had won. If they did not go back to 8,000 he would have to get cards that would restore his life points somehow, like Solemn Wishes. He disliked decks that relied on healing one's own life points as he detested stall decks in general, but he might need a few such cards if he was going to keep dueling here.

But that raised further questions in his head. The enemies he had defeated in a duel had not dropped anything like gold or silver coins which he could then later use to buy cards, nor had they dropped any precious loot like card packs or simple cards. And they had not played using ante rules so Kaiba didn't get a card like that either.

Plus, given how cards didn't have physical form in this world- just how were they sold?

He closed his eyes and none of his stats had a marker for something that resembled money.

Oh well, he would figure that one out later.

As he looked around the room though, he suddenly face-palmed as he realized something when he remembered what that boss had told him.

The beastmen had conquered this city and were keeping the humans as captives! This wasn't someone's sick fetish!

"Oh... but then why did they- oh, it was to eat them! And that's why he was laughing when he said I had some fat on me..." Seto moaned and was glad he had never said anything regarding his earlier thoughts out loud. That would've been far too embarrassing.

**A/N: Thanks for reading guys! As always, drop a review if you liked this, and any questions you might have.**


	3. The Beastmen King III

**A/N: Thank you for your support!**

Seto Kaiba now set his eyes on the people around him. His eyes went to one woman and he couldn't stop staring at her.

Not because he was a pervert- but because she was painfully thin.

He had wondered why the boss had called him 'fat' (Seto Kaiba was not fat by Japanese standards, and definitely not by American/European standards) but this woman didn't seem to have a single ounce of fat on her.

He had seen pictures of starving kids in Africa, mainly from people asking for charity, but somehow those kids looked almost better fed that this woman did. Somehow though, she still had a protruding stomach.

Kaiba had read that sometimes some forms of malnutrition could cause swelling of the stomach, so he just thought it was that.

He went over and removed her mouth gag, and untied her. Her bonds were rather easy to break- she could've probably done it herself if she wasn't so weak.

At this point, Kaiba expected to get the usual 'thank you brave hero' routine from her like one would normally get from an NPC.

Instead, she moved her hand to slap him.

It would've hit him too, but while she had the element of surprise, she had failed to account for three things.

One, that she was rather weak and slow.

Two, that Seto Kaiba was no stranger to fighting at close range.

And that three, Seto Kaiba was not your typical white knight isekai protagonist. Much like Satou Kazuma from Konosuba, he was a believer in true gender equality.

He deflected the slap and then slapped the woman across the face.

The slap was a reflexive defensive move and not one that he had intended to give- and so he had managed softened the blow as it moved towards her face, but it seemed to be almost enough to knock her over.

Her eyes were brimming with tears and she glared at him defiantly. "Why did you let them go!? Do you know what they did to us? How could you let them live? Why didn't you kill them? Why didn't you get here sooner?"

Kaiba backed away a few paces before he felt himself step into something. He turned and looked down.

'Please tell me that isn't urine,' Kaiba prayed to himself. But he knew he prayed in vain.

Even though this was just a video game, he still found this to be utterly gross. There was a limit to how much realism he wanted from a virtual world.

"Why is there urine everywhere!" he screamed as he glanced around the room.

It smelt horrible. He could even understand why there might be human waste littered in the streets of a medieval city- it would make sense given the time. But why was it everywhere here in what was a castle? As far as he knew, people did not go to the toilet in the open in the royal castle!

He untied more humans, but most of them weren't able to string more than a few sobs and gasps together.

As such, there didn't seem to be anything useful he could gleam out of them.

This was really annoying to Seto- what kind of flawed game design was this?

True, real humans would probably be too traumatized to speak after an event like this, but these were NPCs. Why weren't they spitting out facts and useful exposition the moment he talked to them?

Soon enough though, humans (who were actually wearing clothes, thank Obelisk for that) walked in. These humans were all disheveled, dirty, and looked like they were starving, but they didn't seem injured.

All of them automatically looked towards Seto Kaiba.

"Thank the gods," one of them said and they all bowed down before him. "Thank you for saving us."

'Finally,' Kaiba thought. 'This is how things were supposed to go.'

The old man who seemed to be the head of them glanced at him and looked around. "Where are the others with you, Lord?"

"There are no others," Kaiba said. "Just me."

They all had confused looks on their faces. 'Ah, I see. Why did the beastmen leave?"

"Oh that," Kaiba said. "I defeated them in a duel and told them to scram!"

"B-but why did you not kill them?" the man asked in bewilderment. "You have let them flee- surely they will return again!"

'Oh, was I supposed to do something else?' Kaiba thought. No option had appeared for killing the beastmen, so he didn't know he could do that.

Well, nothing could be done about that now.

"Yeah, so, I don't see how that's my problem," Kaiba snapped. "First of all, I want to know who's in charge here?" He resisted the urge to say, 'Take me to your leader.'

The old man was shocked at Kaiba's tone and words, but he said, "Lord, our king is over there."

He pointed to a skull left on a table. "All the other duelists in our city perished at the hands of the beastmen."

"So, who's in charge now?" Kaiba asked.

"The royal family is dead," the man replied. "As such, given the circumstances, Lord, it would be better for you and your men to take temporary control of the city so it does not fall into anarchy."

"I don't have any men with me right now," Kaiba said. "Did you not hear me? I came here alone!"

The old man didn't seem to believe him, and simultaneously seemed to lack the courage to say that Kaiba was lying.

"I see," the old man answered. "Was it also you who defeated their king?"

"Yeah," Kaiba answered.

The people began whispering amongst themselves, and there seemed to be a great deal of confusion among them. From what he could glean out of their conversation, he thought they were skeptical about his claim.

"It's true," a voice said. It was the woman who had tried to slap Seto earlier. "He defeated their king with a monster that defies imagination- an eight star Dragon monster with 3,000 attack. He then let those monsters flee the city unharmed after they begged for their lives." The last sentence was spoken with intense venom.

Gasps and exclamations erupted from the people who had just arrived.

"Three thousand!"

"She must mean thirteen thousand!"

"But that couldn't defeat that Berserk Gorilla!"

"Eight stars? I never thought I'd see the day!"

"Do cards like that even exist?"

"Why'd he let the beastmen go?"

The old man irritably turned to the other members of the crowd and waved his hand.

"Ah, pardon me, Lord," he said. "But I still do not know your name."

"It's consider appropriate manners to introduce onself before asking for someone else's name," Kaiba sneered back.

One of the people behind the old man, a young lad spoke up, "He can't speak to Lord Henry like that!"

"Silence child," the old guy whom Kaiba guessed was Lord Henry answered. "Lord, I am a Baron in these lands, my name is Lord Henry."

"I'm Seto Kaiba," Kaiba answered.

Lord Henry frowned deeply as if what Kaiba had said had made no sense to him. "Ah, pardon me for asking, but what is your title?"

"Eh? Title?" Seto Kaiba asked. "Oh that, I don't have one."

"I see. Pardon me, but I have never heard of a duelist by the name before," Lord Henry said. "Where are you from?"

"Domino City," Seto Kaiba said.

The members of the congregation standing before him looked completely lost. "I have never heard the name of that city." Lord Henry looked at the others and they all shook their heads.

"But of course, we must thank the people of the Kingdom of Domino," Lord Henry added. "For sending us such aid in our time of need."

The man then paused. "If you do not mind, I have a request for you- can you show me the monster that has 3,000 attack?"

"Oh? Do you want to duel?" Seto asked.

"No no," he answered. "I am not a duelist! Please summon your monster as it is."

Seto didn't understand what this guy was talking about, and he was thoroughly annoyed at this conversation, but then it clicked with him.

Was it possible to summon duel monsters outside of an actual duel? There were situations where that had been possible before.

He flipped through his deck mentally and found the Blue Eyes White Dragon.

Great- now what did he have to do?

He thought about summoning the Blue Eyes White Dragon, and suddenly he knew how to summon it.

He could only summon the Blue Eyes once per week, and it would only last outside of a duel for half an hour.

Funnily enough, no tribute seemed to be required for this action.

But that didn't matter to him any more. The chance of having an actual Blue Eyes outside of a duel excited him so much he decided to try it immediately.

"Summon! Blue Eyes White Dragon!"

With a flash of light, his Blue Eyes White Dragon appeared. Once again, its head nearly scraped the ceiling.

"By the gods!" Lord Henry exclaimed. Several of the people there shielded their eyes from the monster.

Seto took a moment to admire the dragon- he had seen it many times before, but he couldn't deny that the aesthetics in this video game were great.

He felt a strange warmth flow down his arm. He had a weird mental link with this monster- could he command it just by thinking it?

He commanded it to roar and it complied.

The earth-shattering noise echoed throughout the castle.

The other humans cowered in fear.

"Terrific!"

"Amazing!"

"unbelievable!"

On the other hand, Seto had a big smile plastered across his face from ear to ear.

Seto was still annoyed at the rest of them, but he could never pass up a chance to brag about his Blue Eyes.

He would love to ride this beast.

And just to be clear, he meant that like riding a plane. In a total non-sexual way of course.

But, it wouldn't be possible to take a creature this big outside through the door.

But, as he glanced up at the roof he got an idea. There was a way to make a route.

He commanded his Blue Eyes to blast open a hole in the roof- and to try to spare the humans. He had a feeling that hurting one of them would have negative consequences.

A stream of blinding light left the dragon's maw and ripped open a hole in the ceiling. Bricks fell down, but the dragon's wings immediately opened in response to deflect the debris from the onlookers.

There was no visible timer, but Kaiba knew that this monster would only remain like this for twenty five minutes and thirty two seconds longer.

He got on, and the dragon took flight.

No words could describe how he felt while soaring over the city. It was an incredible sense of freedom- one that he felt while riding his Blue Eyes themed jet, only magnified a hundredfold given that he could feel the rush of wind through his hair and his dragon breathing beneath him.

As he ascended higher and higher, the cold began to affect him so he ordered his monster to stop.

As he looked down, he was able to see the entire city sprawled out before him. Right over there in the distance he saw the forest where he had come from. Towards the opposite side he could see thousands of small farms and fields. He couldn't see any large settlements like this city in the distance.

Out towards the forest, he saw clouds of dust. The beastmen he had defeated. If he used his Blue Eyes, it would be possible to kill them.

He considered the idea. It would score him some points with this human city- plus, perhaps the reason that he hadn't gotten any gold or silver was because in most games, you needed to kill monsters before you got XP or whatever.

Maybe killing them would mean that they would drop some loot?

But, he dismissed the idea. He had twenty minutes of time left, and they were too far away. Of course, his Blue Eyes flying at full speed could catch up to them, but the thing was that it couldn't fly at even a fraction of that speed without throwing Seto off. And Seto could send the dragon ahead of himself, but he wanted to keep riding it, so he gave up on the idea of striking the beastmen and instead continued flying around. Plus, another thing occurred to him: the other duelists could probably summon monsters but hadn't- which meant that being a duelist probably meant you were also immune to attacks like this. Seto might have to fight them again now that he had let them go.

Time passed.

Urgh... only three minutes left. Time sure did fly when you were having fun. Where should he land though? He coudl go straight through the hole he had made back into the castle, but on second thought the courtyard was a far better idea.

However, he had taken up far too much time. By the time the dragon touched down he only had two seconds left. It disappeared while he was still three feet above the ground and landed with a grunt.

He was rather pissed now. Why was it that he only got half an hour with his Blue Eyes once a week? That was way too long!

He couldn't summon the dragon again, and when he tried he instead met with a timer. Yeah, a full week before he could summon it again. But, he could summon the other two copies of Blue Eyes White Dragon he had, but in total that still meant only an hour and a half of Blue Eyes time a week!

This was unacceptable!

When he found the maker of this game, he'd buy the company that made it, force whoever had limited his Blue Eyes time to only 90 minutes a week to fix it, and then fire those same people for doing something like that in the first place!

He was so infuriated at this that he started kicking up the dirt in the courtyard and he stopped only when he noticed the other humans were looking at him weird and he stopped

He had a reputation to maintain, and couldn't be seen throwing a tantrum like a five year old would when he couldn't get an extra ten minutes on the merry-go-round.

He now had an idea of what to do next though. First of all, he needed to find someone who could explain the rules of this world to him. Second of all, he needed to purchase some cards.

Sure, he didn't have any of this world's money, but given the fact that he had just saved them, he was sure that none of them would complain if he wanted a few cards as a reward.

That was how quests worked, after all.

But, it was only after he calmed down a little that he managed to notice one tiny detail- namely the fact that his life points had dropped from 8,000 to 7,200.

**A/N: I'm a big fan of the way that sometimes in the manga people can use trading cards outside of duels- and that opens up a lot of possibilities You could use Giant Trunade to help out a drought-stricken region, or use a healing monster to cure wounds, or 'Poison of the Old Man' to cure a disease, or 'Hinotama' to start a fire and so on and so forth.**

**But, it also makes me realize that such an ability is super OP, and so I needed to place a few restrictions on them- namely the massive cool down and the fact that using a card takes up life points. I don't want it turning out to be super OP like with Reinhard from Re:Zero, or it becoming like 'The Eagles' from the Lord of the Rings where it could potentially solve any problem.**

**Speaking of life points, I'm not that sure how I want to handle them. I don't want them to reset after each battle, otherwise Seto has a zero percent chance of losing, but I don't want to make it so that they stay the same forever unless you heal up. I feel like this fits with a world like the one I have in mind- namely that a single duelist can't just go ahead an beat hundreds of weaker duelists at once no problem.**

**So yeah, if you've played Reshef of Destruction, I think you already know where I'm going with regarding life points- but thankfully no duelist levels!**

**As such I think using cards in real life is better this way- there are some massive potential benefits but also enough downsides that it can't be waved around willy-nilly.**

**Tell me what you think.**


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